


2.9

by downbeatofsix



Category: In the Flesh (TV)
Genre: M/M, alternatively posted on tumblr, anyway, even though i like it a lot, little tiny drabble fic, set pre-series wow what a shocker, sighs, yeah i procrastinated on posting this one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-06
Updated: 2014-09-06
Packaged: 2018-02-16 09:59:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2265453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/downbeatofsix/pseuds/downbeatofsix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Contrary to popular belief, Rick Macy is a smart boy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	2.9

Contrary to popular belief, Rick Macy is a smart boy.

Maybe he smokes too much (his dad smokes more), or maybe he drinks too much (the pub gives him pints for free), or maybe he skips class a little too much (the bathroom walls are covered in tally marks by now; Rick doesn’t know what they mean, he just likes leaving things behind), and maybe he does play his music too loud, but – 

He knows that his mother loves his father with a waning grace and an exasperation that becomes tighter every year there are burn marks on the window-sill. He knows that he will probably join the army if there’s a war to fight (and there always is). 

(This does not bother him. He doesn’t have anything much to stay for.)

He knows he’s a good son.

But above all else, Rick Macy knows what he wants. And all grade-point averages aside, he knows he cannot get it.

(Getting and having are too very, very different things.)

(This knowledge is possibly the best and worst. It comes in moments and cloud-cover shifts; static fizzes and seaside tides and the edge of Kieren Walker’s smile.)

Rick Macy wants Kieren Walker. 

This is a simple and sad truth. Rick Macy wants Kieren Walker. He almost gouged it into tile, once, sitting next to the chipped urinals in the third floor of the science building.

(Almost is a variable of a word.) 

He wants Kieren’s smiles and Kieren’s scowls and the way Kieren’s eyebrows furrow like they’re trying to crawl onto the bridge of his nose and he wants Kieren to never stop getting that shitty deathmetal stuck in his head. 

He wants Kieren to not have to shrink into his hideous spiked platform boots he got from God-knows where whenever Gary Kendal walks by, he wants Jem to stop watching him from under her bangs, he wants to get out of this small-streets small-minds fucking village, but mostly he wants to take Kieren by the collar and kiss him, hard, outside the cafeteria.  
He knows that Kieren Walker also wants him. They don’t talk about it much. Mostly, they talk about everything else, and sometimes Rick’ll touch Kieren’s shoulder and Kieren will lean into him and it’s hopeless, the way they fit together. Completely hopeless. 

(A cave wall isn’t as good as a bathroom sink, but.)

Rick knows that there is a tentative peace, to Roarton. There is a tradition and a way and it’s beautiful when the weather turns misty and there’s slush on the streets. He knows that there would be a heart attack or two if Rick Macy was seen holding Kieren Walker’s hand on the way to third period (but that doesn’t stop him from carrying his books sometimes). He knows that it would be a little too much at once. He knows it’ll never be enough. He knows that he will probably never be able to tell Kieren he loves him without getting the words all tangled and knotted against his tongue, but he also knows that Kieren’s always understood him well enough.

It’s just, sometimes he forgets. Sometimes it’ll be three in the morning and Kieren will be looking at him out of the corner of his eye and smiling at some hunk of rock on the cave floor and they’ll talk about just getting on that damn train and sending postcards back every once and a while. Sometimes Rick’ll take Kieren’s hand like his palms aren’t sweating, like he doesn’t still have that stupid nerd mix CD Kieren had given him about two years ago. Like it’s nothing. 

Sometimes he thinks they can be happy.

(But Rick Macy is a smart boy. There is what he wants, and what he knows, and he’ll get there eventually.)

 

//end.

**Author's Note:**

> writing blog: downbeatofsix  
> main blog: accidental-aries  
> come and say hi!


End file.
